Waxing Moon

It has been a crisp, cold, sunny day here in the interior of the province (-19°C). This picture was taken at 3:30 p.m. when a waxing moon was seen above the shining poplar and spruce trees.

Winter Trees by William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

~ William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

Hope

Dark-eyed Junco

Hope Is The Thing With Feathers by Emily Dickinson

"Hope" is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird 

That kept so many warm -

I've heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

Uplands

View at Sunset

A beautiful winter poem by Archibald Lampman, a 19th-century Canadian poet.  Born on November 17, 1861 in Morpeth, Ontario.  Died on February 10, 1899 in Ottawa.

Winter Uplands

The frost that stings like fire upon my cheek,
The loneliness of this forsaken ground,
The long white drift upon whose powdered peak
I sit in the great silence as one bound;
The rippled sheet of snow where the wind blew
Across the open fields for miles ahead;
The far-off city towered and roofed in blue
A tender line upon the western red;
The stars that singly, then in flocks appear,
Like jets of silver from the violet dome,
So wonderful, so many and so near,
And then the golden moon to light me home--
The crunching snowshoes and the stinging air,
And silence, frost, and beauty everywhere.

~ Archibald Lampman (1861-1899)

November

November by Hartley Coleridge

The mellow year is hasting to its close:

The little birds have almost sung their last,

Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast --

That shrill-piped harbinger of early snows;

The patient beauty of the scentless rose,

Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glassed,

Hangs a pale mourner for the summer past,

And makes a little summer where it grows; --

In the chill sunbeam of the faint brief day

The dusky waters shudder as they shine;

The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way

Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define,

And the gaunt woods, in ragged, scant array,

Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy-twine.

~ Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849)

English poet

Moon Glow

The Moon by Sappho

The stars about the lovely moon
Fade back and vanish very soon,
When, round and full, her silver face
Swims into sight and lights all space.

~ Sappho

Greek Poet  

Sky Watch - Clouds

"Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows
flaunt forth, then chevy on an air"

~ Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

English poet

Sky Watch Friday

The 1st of March

Morning:
Temperature: -6C (21.2F)

The sun is not quite breaking through the clouds yet, but it's there. The wind is calm; the woods are quiet.

************

I wonder if the sap is stirring yet,
If wintry birds are dreaming of a mate,
If frozen snowdrops feel as yet the sun
And crocus fires are kindling one by one:
Sing robin, sing;
I still am sore in doubt concerning Spring.

~ Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Spring Flowers and Willow Fuzz

I looked high and low and could not find any pink wildflowers to illustrate the poem I chose for today's entry. The wild rose blossoms are still tightly packed in their buds and won't make an appearance until sometime this month. The flower colour which stands out the most at this time is the sun colour - yellow. Everywhere I turn, some shape or shade of yellow draws my attention. The lilacs aren't woodland plants, but they happily grow beside them, and this past week the serviceberry shrubs burst into bloom, the flowers, from a distance, looking very much like snowy dollops attached to the branches. If I follow a narrow path where many willows grow near the water, willow fuzz lightly floats and is carried by the late spring breeze. Please enjoy the flowers and the poem by Han Yu.

Oregon Grape

Lilacs, opening

Serviceberry Shrub

Every plant and tree knows Spring will soon be gone

A hundred pinks and purples

Compete with their bouquets

Willow fuzz and elm pods lack such clever means

They only know how to fill the sky with snow.

~Han Yu (768-824)

One Day a Tall Tree

A Seed

See how a Seed, which Autumn flung down,
And through the Winter neglected lay,
Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown,
With tiny root taking hold on the clay
As, lifting and strengthening day by day,
It pushes red branchless, sprouts new leaves,
And cell after cell, the Power in it weaves
Out of the storehouse of soil and clime,
To fashion a Tree in due course of time;
Tree with rough bark and boughs' expansion,
Where the Crow can build his mansion,
Or a Man, in some new May,
Lie under whispering leaves and say,
"Are the ills of one's life so very bad
When a Green Tree makes me deliciously glad?"
As I do now. But where shall I be
When this little Seed is a tall green Tree?

~William Allingham (1824-1889) 

Irish Poet

No Words

"Among all these things there is real meaning,
Yet when I try to express it,
I become lost in no-words."

~T'ao Ch'ien (365-427AD)

"I gather chrysanthemums at the eastern hedgerow,
And silently gaze at the southern mountains.
The mountain is beautiful in the sunset,
And the birds flocking together return home.
Among all these things there is real meaning,
Yet when I try to express it,
I become lost in no-words."

~T'ao Ch'ien (365-427AD)

Wooded Island

Interior Lake

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all aglimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

~William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), The Rose 1893

Photo Credit: Mindaugas Urbonas
granted me permission to use his Linnet photo

Yesterday - nice day for gardening - being outdoors - listening to the sounds of nature - neighbourhood coming alive - people opening doors - much activity - sawing and hammering - a new shelf for my tomato plants - thank you.

~~~~~~

The clouds are so lovely at this time of year, and one of my favourite things to do when I'm outside in the garden is to sky gaze. For my poetry pick of the week, I've chosen Shelley's beautiful poem The Cloud.

The Cloud (1st stanza)

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,

From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
in their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

~Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

The entire poem can be read here.

Gardening and Garter Snakes

It was a lovely warm day yesterday. Temperature: 17C by the afternoon. I worked in the garden and visited the garter snakes. This fellow was by himself the first time, but when I checked again later, there were two snakes sunning themselves on the birch tree that leans out over the hill. This morning it is 8C and raining.

D. H. Lawrence wrote a wonderful poem about a snake when he was living in Taormina, Sicily. It is full of emotion as he describes meeting the snake on a hot July day when he goes out for some water "and must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me". He goes on to tell how the snake "rested his throat upon the stone bottom, And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness, He sipped with his straight mouth, Softly drank....Silently". The poet feels he should have killed the snake because he was the venomous kind, but he admits to actually liking him, "How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless". There are so many beautiful lines in this poem, and it is worth reading and thinking over. The poem can be read in its entirety at the Representative Poetry Online Library (University of Toronto)

Snake by Herbert David Lawrence (1885-1930)
(Birds, Beasts and Flowers: Poems 1923)

Look to This Day

Look to this Day, for it is Life.

For Yesterday is but a Dream,

And Tomorrow is only a Vision,

But Today, well lived, makes

Every Yesterday a Memory of Happiness,

And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
~from an Ancient Sanskrit Poem~

I hope all of you will have a wonderful day!

Robins

It is a very blustery, cool day. I saw at least twenty robins
in a flock near an open field. Also saw my first two bluebirds
of the season, but they were too quick for me to take a picture.
See previous post for the "first robin" picture.


back view

on a rock

two in the ditch

on fence post

home tweet home

on a hillside

A favourite old children's poem

What the Robin Told the Wind

The wind told the grasses,
And the grasses told the trees.
The trees told the bushes,
And the bushes told the bees.
The bees told the robin,
And the robin sang out clear,
Wake up! Wake up!
Spring is here!

Sunrise for a new month beginning

At Sunrise

Now the stars have faded
In the purple chill,
Lo, the sun is kindling
On the eastern hill.

Tree by tree the forest
Takes the golden tinge,
As the shafts of glory
Pierce the summit's fringe.

Rock by rock the ledges
Take the rosy sheen,
As the tide of splendor
Floods the dark ravine.

Like a shining angel
At my cabin door,
Shod with hope and silence,
Day is come once more.

Then, as if in sorrow
That you are not here,
All his magic beauties
Gray and disappear.

~ Bliss Carman (1861-1929)*

*Well-known Canadian poet who was born in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Many of his beautiful poems have a nature theme, and I remember being first introduced to his poetry in elementary school.

Snowed In

Yesterday, it snowed all morning and into the afternoon. This morning, under lowered skies, it snows yet again. Emily Dickinson wrote a beautiful poem about snow in 1862 that described her winter surroundings in Massachusetts. Her wonderful poem transcends time as today it nicely depicts the picturesque snowy scene I have in front of me.

It Sifts From Leaden Sieves

It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain, --
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem, --
The summer's empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen, --
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Freezing

-28C (-18F)

These are a few lines from Shelley's poem Summer and Winter -

It was a winter such as when birds die
In the deep forests; and the fishes lie
Stiffened in the translucent ice, which makes
Even the mud and slime of the warm lakes
A wrinkled clod as hard as brick; and when,
Among their children, comfortable men
Gather around great fires, and yet feel cold:
Alas, then, for the homeless beggar old!

- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Winter 2008
Still too many people sleeping out in the cold,
Some things never change for the "homeless beggar old"!